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Hello everyone! With you, The Actman. And today, with Halo Studios now a thing of the past, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at an old video that I never posted. This was after the first trailer came out about 9-10 months ago. The video was originally titled "Halo Campaign Evolved Makes No Sense." And in this video I talk about exactly that. Why, on paper, did it seem like this wasn't the game worth making? All things considered, it seems I was right. But I wanted to show you this video and play a little game. So, if you think that most of what I said in this video is accurate or that I predicted everything fairly accurately, you should give it a like. If you
think otherwise, you can dislike it without any remorse. Remember, what you're about to see was filmed 9 months ago, so it's no longer relevant, but it's interesting to look back at this video that I just didn't post. So, I hope you like it. It's been about two weeks since 343 Industries, aka Halo Studios, announced the remake of Halo Combat Evolved-Campaign Evolved. I was working on this video before the recent news about a rather important game. Maybe you've heard of it. Something was postponed again. You can't continue to do this with impunity! GTA 6 has been moved to November 2026, 4 days after the 25th anniversary of Combat Evolved. It's not easy here right now. I think that's the only way to describe the situation.
It's hard to be a Halo fan, man. It seems like we can't possibly win any convincingly, but I don't want this to be a "Halo is dead forever" video. I want to point out why a Halo Combat Evolved remake makes no sense. You see, I was at the Halo World Championship Series, which was incredibly cool, by the way. I saw the announcement of Campaign Evolved live. The atmosphere in the hall was exciting. But after I saw it, I didn't feel particularly excited. I've probably played through Halo 1 more times than any other game. So why am I more confused than excited about this remake? Why does this strategy seem
so pointless? And what does the release of Halo on PlayStation consoles really mean? We'll talk about all of this, and I have answers for you. And just to be clear, I'm going to be a little more negative in this video. I'll have a sequel, because while this video is about the worst-case scenario, I also plan to make a follow-up where I imagine the best- case scenario. And I think it's important to engage both sides of our imagination. And that's fun, right? It's fun to use your imagination in the world of Halo. But at this point, the GTA 6 porting seems pretty funny to me, because we got a GTA 6 delay before we even got the game itself. I knew this would happen.
The problem is that Xbox and Microsoft seem to have a whole bunch of games planned for that holiday season, including a Halo CE remake. The release schedule is really not very good. And when I say a CE remake makes no sense, I mean it in every way. The delay of GTA 6 is like a sign. This is a sign of failure. But beyond that, from a business perspective, you know where the Halo franchise is right now, what it's just been through, what it needs and what needs to happen to get it back on its feet. So here's the question. Why do we just abandon all work on Infinite? I find it strange that at an event meant to celebrate the multiplayer portion of Halo-the side of the franchise that did its best to maintain respect for the Halo brand-why was
They're there for multiplayer. They are competing for a million dollars. This, you know, is a pretty serious matter. And yet these professional players have no idea where their careers are headed. Will they stay in Halo? It looks like there won't be any more HCS for Infinite, which is honestly a bit disappointing because those events were just incredible. Every one I've been to has been impressive. There were technical issues at the beginning, but the events were still great. As is the community itself. My point is, if you're making a remake of Combat Evolved, but only remaking half of it, is there any long-term strategy here at all? If you can't do the campaign and multiplayer the first time, then we get even less
than before. Isn't that right? This is effectively a new mainline Halo game, as it will So, that's problem number one. We don't have much going on in terms of official Halo products right now. Despite this, the community always releases some incredibly cool content, and there are a ton of great mods in the Steam Workshop for MCC So the logical question arises: are we abandoning Halo Infinite completely? We're throwing all the work away again, as we did with parts four and five. With every new game they come up with a bunch of new crap and then throw it all away. Infinite was supposed to be the foundation of this franchise for the next 10 years. And it does n't even look like we're building the next game around it. What will happen to all this content: the
armor sets, the customization, all the assets, the maps, the incredible Forge mode-all this work that has been done? I think the announcement of the CE remake would have been received much better if we had also been shown the next multiplayer game or the next main Halo installment. So Halo Studios or 343 are essentially rebuilding their foundation again, only now on Unreal. A foundation for Halo without multiplayer, custom games, Forge, or any of the social features that Halo popularized and made mainstream. That is, this is where Halo has always been innovative, and now it seems that there are even fewer social
features and community interaction in this remake. If it's just a campaign, isn't it a cheap game for profit? I mean, there doesn't seem to be any long-term plan for players to come back again. And people can justify 343 or Halo Studios or give them credit, but, damn, man, it's Halo. Halo should have multiplayer. He was always in Halo. I don't care what their reasons are for not showing the new multiplayer. I just want him. From a consumer perspective, they won't care. They'll just see that you're not offering what Halo usually offered in the main parts. And I'm not saying it's impossible, as if I'm completely wrong and the Halo Campaign Evolved remake will sell incredibly well, somehow reviving this franchise or getting it back on track
. Maybe they'll listen to our feedback and the remake will turn out to be a damn masterpiece that rivals the original. Maybe. I'm willing to accept that it's possible. Maybe the novelty of Halo coming to PlayStation will be enough to get people interested and get them to open their wallets. And maybe this will be a victory, albeit a small one, for the Halo franchise. But when I look at their strategy and how they presented this remake, I see all the flaws and I can't ignore them. That's part of the problem, I think, with the direction of the Halo series: problems appear, sometimes they are resolved, but no conclusions are drawn, and those problems return again.
The idea that this is a fan remake seems strange because, you know, I've been in this thread for a long time, I've seen them do one of these Halo 1 remasters before. I've seen them do it before. And your experience with properly adapting Halo is, well, not impressive, to say the least. So, here's what I want to do. I have some notes, but I want to watch the "Halo Campaign Evolved Roundtable" presentation because I feel like it contains a lot of answers to why this remake feels so confusing and sluggish, and why it might not be the best decision for Halo to come out on PlayStation with a game like this. We will discuss all this. Oh, so beautiful. And yet it's not quite Halo in everything. Okay, I'll be honest, I could record a whole video
about the Foreigner art style and how it's supposed to be old, ancient, and practical. It doesn't have to look cute or attractive. I could make a whole video about this, but we won't get into that. Not today. Now I will say that this armor really does look great. I like that she's a little more massive, and how Chief becomes slimmer in Halo 2 and 3. He feels a little more agile in the next two games. Halo Campaign Evolved is the next project from Halo Studios. Next project? You did a rebranding. You're supposedly a brand new company, right? And this is your first project. So is this 343 again? Is this 343 somehow back?
Somehow. 343 returned. Impossible. Do you understand what I mean? Like even little things like that just confuse me because I know too much about Halo. By the way, I met Brian. He is a great guy. Whatever I criticize in the words of these people, remember that their job is to speak on behalf of the company. A great big asset to the company. Assets. A wonderful asset to the company. So I guess most of them don't make the big important creative decisions, the kind of thing we 'd complain about. They are not responsible for business strategy. So, to be clear, I'll also say about the name Halo Campaign Evolved, I do n't like it.
First, it immediately lets people know that this is likely just a solo or cooperative campaign. No multiplayer, nothing else to entertain, interest, or keep you playing. Secondly, if you screw up this remake and call it Campaign Evolved but don't change the campaign in essence, you'll create a whole bunch of new problems for yourself, because we'll laugh at you. And number three, Halo 1, I mean, you already did the Infinite reboot. We'll talk about how this doesn't make sense either, but we have what we have. We are actually in the second restart phase. Call it Halo 1. Back to basics, just stick with the original name.
This would have made more sense, because Bungie didn't really want to add the Combat Evolved subtitle. They wanted to just call it Halo. Call it Halo or Halo 1. You know, that name worked well for Battlefield 1. You should know, you created the Xbox One. A remake of the Halo CE campaign. It's coming to Xbox, PC and, for the first time, PlayStation. That's the thing. The release of Halo on PlayStation should be considered a big event, and this is not the time or game to make such a move. First, the series isn't in the best shape right now, and
second, a PlayStation gamer who's never played Halo probably wouldn't care about the Combat Evolved remake. If it's a game they haven't played in 24 years, there's a reason for that. They are simply not interested. You know, it's pretty funny, right? Helldivers 2 was an update to ODST, and it's a game that takes social features and the idea of playing with other people to the next level, making all of your personal contributions work towards a common goal. So bringing Helldivers to Xbox was a great strategic move, as the engaged player base contributes to the community. With the Campaign Evolved remake, there is no way for the PlayStation community to get involved in this community.
They don't have the tools for this. At best, most people, if it's just a campaign, will complete it and then not remember or play it even 2 weeks later. I'm not even against the idea of Halo coming to PlayStation. But if you're going to do it, you should make the most of it. Well, let's say we add Forge mode, multiplayer, firefight. It should have all the features that once attracted a wide audience to Halo. That's what makes no sense at all. They're still chasing a wider audience, right? Apparently they couldn't achieve the results on Xbox or PC, then ported everything to Xbox, failed again, and now they're going to PlayStation. This strategy
simply won't work because there are no tools to create in-game content and share it with other players. To some extent, this looks like a sign of defeat, surrender, or despair. We don't know what to do with Halo, so let's just release it on PlayStation. This is a kind of admission of defeat for the Xbox brand, because now they essentially have no exclusives left, at least for Xbox. If Halo was going to come out on PlayStation, then it would have to have all the features and everything that makes Halo a great game. It was supposed to be released as part of the Master Chief Collection. So, why not just port MCC to PlayStation? It's much more strategic if you're trying to sell something on your biggest competitor's platform for the
past 24 years. Why not MCC? This is a game that is worth continuing to support. This is a game where the number of players really matters. So chasing a broad audience without having any of the things that Halo fans love is like cognitive dissonance . See, I just don't get it Why is this game appropriate for this moment? We did this work on Halo Anniversary. It seemed to me that there were certain things that remained unproven. This is also puzzling. Many criticize Anniversary. And quite rightly so. The graphics do not retain the style or spirit of the original. This is a huge downgrade. There are lots of shoals there. Same with sound design.
However, there are still some pretty cool things in Anniversary that I remember really liking at the time. Firstly, these are cut scenes in the terminals. Anniversary added a whopping 25 minutes of additional hidden cutscenes, one in each level, which greatly complemented and improved the story of Combat Evolved. I could make a whole video about these cutscenes from Anniversary terminals. They are simply incredible. Especially the one with Keys. So this was an example of how they're already adding to the story, which begs the question: what are they going to do with those terminals in the remake? Are they going to include them too or not? You know, I'm just so confused. But even if you didn't like the new graphics, Anniversary did something I want to see in other
remasters-it added a switch between graphic styles. This is so cool. It's such a groundbreaking concept: being able to look at two different versions of the same game with just the click of a button, see how it was all those years ago, go back and compare. Essentially, 343 added a tool so you could check out their work and criticize it as much as you wanted, which I thought was really cool. And lastly: Combat Evolved came out a year after Reach, and it had a connection to Reach. It brought a whole new set of maps, a new map for the Firefight mode. It was related to Reach multiplayer. All of these things were interconnected. And even if you didn't like Reach, you could wait for Halo 4, or go back and play Halo 3 or the original Halo 2. Back then,
there was a well-thought-out strategy for Combat Evolved Anniversary, which made a lot more sense and offered more content. Comparing this to the current CE remake is a bit sad, because it's a work in progress, and what we get feels like less than before. This is a great time to rediscover Combat Evolved for both new players and seasoned Halo fans. Again, if you're a new player getting to know Combat Evolved for the first time, multiplayer should be a must-have. There should be a multiplayer
component. That's exactly how it was when she came out. She had multiplayer. So this really isn't the best time for PlayStation players to join, because if they were sold MCC, damn it, they'd have five or six games to choose from, as opposed to a remake of one that's already on MCC. Maybe even for old friends who play on different platforms today, to allow them to play together and enjoy the franchise together again. This is one thing that really makes sense. I will give credit where it is due. Ultimately, the idea of a cross-platform campaign, I don't know if this has been done before.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like a cool concept. If you're on different hardware, hey, if you, damn it, switched to PlayStation after the Xbox One fiasco, we don't blame you, but you and your friends can still play together. I had quite a few friends who bought a PlayStation and never looked back at an Xbox. So it's a kind of sign of goodwill. Returning to the Halo ring again, for the first time. " For the first time" is really important. You are not returning to it for the first time. I don't like to mince words, but this is the second time we've been back here, not counting the soft reboot of Halo Infinite, whose open world was entirely inspired by the second mission of that game. So it's
like we've gone back to Combat Evolved for inspiration twice in a row, and maybe the fountain of nostalgia is already drying up. For new players, now is the time to join. Consider this your introduction to this huge franchise that we've been building for the past 25 years. Okay. Um, I have a lot of complaints about everything that was just said. First, the franchise we have been building for the last 25 years. We? Who is "we"? You don't mean yourself, do you? Because you weren't there at the very beginning. You haven't built it for 25 years. Okay. I won't be too harsh. I'll just say that there's a very clear difference between the time this franchise was being built
and the years when Halo seemed to be falling apart. These are two different time periods. I would just choose my words better. But it also sounds like, "Oh yeah, we need new players. Everything now is Xbox. No more exclusive IPs. Can we have all the gamers, please? » You have to deserve these players. And what you're showing them in this roundtable presentation about gameplay.I don't see how a PlayStation player is supposed to be inspired or feel, "Oh, this is the best time to start." MCC on PS5- this would be the best time. That would be a valid argument. But this.someone who hasn't played Halo in 24 years wouldn't give a damn about the three prequel missions. They have had no
attachment to this franchise from the very beginning. They won't even know the Warthog has a fourth seat, right? Show them something cool, something different and new. Leave the nostalgic moments for fans like me who are fanatical about this [__], but add something new to lure those players in. Again, you have to play to Halo's strengths, and this remake doesn't play to them in the sense of attracting a new audience. It looks like we're just testing technology. The project is driven by technology, the new Unreal Engine, not passion or strategy. It seems like the easiest thing to do. The cheapest and most effective way is to simply make a working game. And if this CE remake turns out to be just that and becomes a great foundation, then we'll
come back to this video and you can all laugh at me When we change something, the main thing was to stay true to the original game. You see, you can't lie to me. Don't tell me what I want to hear and then show me that you lied. If you were faithful to the original, you would understand at least two things. That the Forerunners art style doesn't have to look slick, flashy, new, and shiny. It should look old, practical, and worn. And secondly, if you were faithful to the original, you would understand that from a game designer's perspective, adding running to Halo 1 makes your job harder. Of course, one can make arguments in favor of running.
I admit, there are arguments in favor of adding running to Combat Evolved. But they did not present these arguments. They do not make these arguments. They just say it can be turned off. The main thing was to stay true to the original game. These are the kind of statements that 343 has consistently made: " We will always have split-screen in the future." That's exactly what I want to hear, and then they inevitably back down. But this time, when they say that every solution has to be faithful to the original, and then you see that it's not, it's quite annoying.
We will make some spaces larger. We also want to make sure we are authentic to the fights themselves. So it's a balancing act between setting the difficulty and, you know, getting the right size of these fights for the right space. Okay, this is actually very disturbing because this is another thing that doesn't make sense. You're introducing a bunch of new mechanics at once into a game that didn't have any of that Vehicle capture, running, aiming, four-player co-op. You'll have to tweak the AI, the enemy placement, the level sizes, you'll have to redo everything to make it work and not turn into a complete mess. For example, sprinting and capturing vehicles can already ruin many infantry-vehicle encounters.
They could have done "Two Betrayals." You could just sprint and jump into one of the Ghosts. What's the problem? Yeah, so the creative direction and the things that they're implementing-I can see how they could create problems, and I'm not hearing anything from these guys about how they're going to solve them, and that's So, Halo has always been known for its " sandbox" nature. How did it evolve? We made sure that everything we added wouldn't drastically change the gameplay. You changed the number of rounds in the assault rifle from 60 to 32, radically changing the "sandbox" of the first Halo. The assault rifle in Combat Evolved
was different, and there's no point in changing it because it was unique to that Halo. Between Halo CE and the third installment, there was a lot of development in how Flood behaved and how he interacted with the player. So we brought a lot of those Does this mean you just took assets from other games? It feels like a lot of the assets in this game were taken from different parts of Halo, which makes it feel like some kind of homogeneous mush. I have to say, focusing on technology in cutscenes could be a good bet in this regard. This might be the best part. We have access to the original source assets, source code, and original storyboards. If you have access to the original source code and
storyboards, then you have virtually no excuse to screw things up. Let's come back to this part of the video in a year, if anyone remembers. Let's go back. We'll see how this ages. It was very important that we keep the original story as it is. When they say, " Keep the story as it is," and after watching the first 15 minutes of Silent Cartographer, where everything is repeated step by step, I get the impression that they think it's a good move to put all the new content at the very beginning, and leave the next 10 missions as a game from 24 years ago. That's the impression I get. Because if the goal was different, they might have said, "We'll also
expand on the missions you know and love, the way Bungie originally planned." That's the thing. They always try not to mention the people whose labor they exploit like parasites. And then all these former Bungie designers show up. Here's another thing that doesn't make sense. Jamie Griesemer is active on social media. It seems like he's willing to share his thoughts on what would make a quality Combat Evolved remake, or at least talk about the thought process behind his and Bungie's original vision. But the fact that you guys don't talk to them, don't talk to former Bungie developers, and don't even seem to want to work with them -that's strange.
How can this inspire confidence that the remake will be faithful to the original? I would encourage our entire Halo community to welcome this new generation of players with open arms. How can I welcome them? There is no multiplayer. There is no custom game browser. There is no Forge there. There player selection. There is no Firefight. How can I.I can't interact with these people. If it's a couch co-op game or a co-op campaign, you'll just play it with your friends. I ca n't.This doesn't make sense. Release in 2026: we know how much development for Series S ruined a bunch of games, because they all had to have the same features. Look at all these platforms
they have to create versions for. You mean to say that all of this on Unreal Engine 5 will run flawlessly on all platforms, with four players, running, vehicle hijacking, new enemies, and reworked levels, and it will all work? I wish it were so. That would be pretty damn cool, but ladies and gentlemen, I just had to get out of here. To me, it just doesn't make sense to release a Halo Combat Evolved remake so late and then port it to PlayStation and expect any meaningful results. I certainly want this remake to succeed, and I'll be releasing a follow-up video on how I think they can do it. It's not all that bad, you know? I think it's helpful to imagine both the worst and best case scenarios. And that's exactly what this video and
my next Halo video will do. But yes, given everything I said in this video, I don't understand the vision, the reasoning, the goals, and the long-term plan. For example, we don't know the future of multiplayer. Infinite came out four years ago. The state of Halo just baffles me, and I've complained enough already, but that's the way it is. Was I right about Halo Campaign Evolved? Was I wrong? Let us know in the comments below. Like the video if you enjoyed it and subscribe to TheActMan for more cool content. Okay, everyone. That's all I have prepared for today. TheActMan was with you, bye. Peace.
